


I'm Just Not Myself (When You're Away)

by insominia



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Forgetful Dean Winchester, Gen, Growing Old, Heavy Angst, Hurt, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-30 23:20:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17837951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insominia/pseuds/insominia
Summary: It's been three years now and Dean hasn't said a word. He left so much unsaid so now he says nothing.





	I'm Just Not Myself (When You're Away)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blueeyesandpie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueeyesandpie/gifts).



> So blueeyesandpie wrote this summary/prompt and that was my day gone, basically.
> 
> Something happens to Cas and the boys can't find him or retrieve him. They carry on as best they can after, although Dean's never quite the same. He lives to be old and gray against all odds, but then his memory starts to go. The day comes when he looks at Sam with the same blank face he's given everyone else he's forgotten, so Sam and Claire make the hard decision to put him in a home where he will be safe and happy until it's....time. He stays there for days...weeks....months....years. And though he neither worsens nor gets better, he never says a word again
> 
> Then one day an out of breath middle-aged man in a trench coat pushes through the lobby to sink to his knees next to the old man. He touches his hair like its made of God's grace, holds his hand like he's the most precious thing in the world, and waits patiently for Dean to notice him.
> 
> And Dean reaches up with his free hand to touch his angel's face and says "Where have you been, Cas? I've looked for you forever and a day."
> 
> (Loosely based on the song Where've You Been by Kathy Mattea)

_This is my voicemail. Make your voice...a mail._

 

Castiel has been gone for twenty-nine hours and he hasn't checked in yet. Dean puts the phone down and slips it into his pocket with a frown. He'd volunteered for a milk run in Indiana, a routine salt and burn. They'd ID'd the ghost from the online information alone and Sam had located the remains, down to the plot. So off Castiel went, and it had probably been so easy he hadn't thought to text or call. What would he say? ' _I went to the place you said and did the thing we do, coming home now_.' But, still, Dean frowns.

Sam notices his frown and knows instantly what has caused it, but he shrugs and teases, " _it's barely been a day, Dean, he's probably caught in traffic. He probably didn't even need to stay there. He could do this job in his sleep_." Dean nods, Sam's right, when Cas gets back he'll tell him to at least send a text next time, just so they know he's ok.

 

_This is my voicemail. Make your voice...a mail._

 

After fifty-two hours, Sam has stopped teasing, and he thinks Dean doesn't notice him slipping off to make his own calls. He doesn't know why Cas wouldn't reply to Dean, they hadn't argued or anything before he'd taken off, but just in case, Sam calls. And texts. More than once. He doesn't get a reply and when he returns to Dean he says nothing about the duffle his brother is packing. Neither of them say it, but in their own way, they both move to prepare for the seven hundred mile journey to Indiana.

 

_This is my voicemail. Make your voice...a mail._

 

Sam and Dean have been in Indiana for almost two weeks, remaining even after all their leads go cold. Dean is joined at the hip to the sheriff he's befriended, in the hopes that it will lead them to Cas. The Sheriff is surprised to see the FBI take such an interest in a missing person, but he can see from the way Agent Collins talks about the man that this personal. They'd been getting a drink when Agent Collins admits to the Sheriff that the man is a friend, but the Sheriff sees through that. The Agents are tied up in knots over this guy and this is hardly the first missing person case he's seen, but never in his life has he seen anyone so desperate to find them.

Agent Gabriel stops by almost daily just to double check that nothing new has happened and every day the Sheriff tells him that if anything had come up he'd have called. He never tells him to stop coming though, the Agents are staying in a motel up the road, one room, two queens, and they're both so strung out trying to find this guy that the taller agent is probably using the walk as an excuse to get away from his partner.

The Sheriff himself is invested, he finds himself checking the log book before he's done anything else on his shifts, in the hopes that he might see something matching the man's description. Dark hair, blue eyes, blue tie, trench coat. He finds himself longing to be the one to call the Agents and give them a lead. These guys are FBI, they've probably worked cases the Sheriff can't imagine, but he knows that if they don't find this guy they'll break. Agent Collins especially.

He takes to driving by the cemetery, on the off chance. It's not a lead exactly, but the only thing of note that happened before the guy disappeared happened in the cemetery. Somebody dug up an old grave, a _real_ old one and set fire to the contents. Some kids had found it burning and called it in. It was probably nothing, probably a prank, but it was the only thing to have happened on what must have been the slowest day of the year for the department, so the Sheriff makes a point to drive by there.

 

_This is my voice mail. Make your voice...a mail._

 

It's been three months since the Winchesters came back from Indiana.

They've got nothing.

If it wasn't for the desecrated grave they'd have had no proof that Cas had ever even made it there. They've moved on from the standard methods of searching, branching out into more supernatural ones. They cast locater spells and when that fails they seek out other, more powerful witches to do it for them. They visit psychics and diviners, bringing one of Cas' spare ties in the hope that it will ground them, but it never seems to help.

Dean isn't sleeping. Or eating. And he's drinking way too much that reminds Sam of when his brother emerged from Hell, scarred and broken more by the memories than the physical torment. It can't go on like this, Sam thinks, finding Dean face down in a book, a mostly empty bottle of whiskey beside him. But he knows it will until they exhaust every conceivable option available to them and those that aren't.

He shifts the book from underneath Dean, trying not to wake him and then downs the remains of the whiskey. Before he turns in himself, he double checks his phone, something he does so often he might as well have the screen burned into his eyes. The screen is blank. The screen is always blank.

 

_This is my voice mail. Make your voice...a mail._

 

Castiel is missing for eight months and twelve days before Dean snaps, and honestly, Sam is surprised he held out as long as this. He doesn't protest when Dean's fist connects with his jaw, he's mostly shocked that Dean managed to land it given that his diet mostly consists of whiskey from the bottle.

It was always going to end this way.

Dean cracks Sam on the nose.

Sam had found them a case. He's been trying for months to get them to work, sometimes he disappears to work on his own, but this time he wanted Dean's help. This time he insisted. And Dean had glared at him and reminded him that they were _on_ a case.

But that wasn't enough for Sam anymore. He missed, Cas, God of course he did and he'd give anything to know where he was, what had happened, but there was nothing left for them. Every hunter they knew and everyone they didn't know had been on the lookout for the dark-haired man, blue eyes, trench coat. They'd summoned demons, angels, nobody had known where he was, as though he had never been anywhere at all. They'd forced a reaper to trawl the veil, the beyond and anywhere else he might have slipped. They've learned more about every potential afterlife this year than in all their years of hunting combined, which was impressive in itself given their very personal experiences with it all.

Sam staggers backward, his hand flying up to his eye, it will be swollen in the morning.

There is nothing left. Nothing they haven't tried, nobody they haven't spoken to. But the people, the people being killed by the monsters they aren't hunting, those are real and they are _now_.

Sam's lip splits and at the sight of his brother's blood on his own knuckles, Dean finally pauses. He looks from the lip to his hand as though he doesn't quite understand how the two could be connected, before he runs a hand through his hair and turns, grabbing a bottle as he goes.

Sam would sigh if he wasn't panting after the assault, however brief it was. He leaves a note, he calls Claire because he wasn't lying, this really was a two-person job and he heads off, checking his phone again before he starts the ignition.

 

_The mailbox belonging to [Dean it's asking for my name again-] is full and cannot accept any more messages at this time._

 

Baby is gone when Sam and Claire get back from their job, they're practically partners now. They exchange a look, but then Sam sees the calendar and realises the date. They haven't cleaned off from the vampires they'd ganked just an hour ago, they both need sleep and Claire didn't exactly eat much at dinner. But without a word, they both get back into the car and Sam starts driving.

They switch driving until they get to Indiana and Baby is in the motel parking lot, just as Sam said it would be. Claire checks in under a fake name and Sam thanks her before moves to picks the lock to his brother's room. He doesn't have to, it's not locked, that in itself should be worrying.

He expects to find Dean passed out on the floor, perhaps bloody, perhaps both, but Dean is fine. He is sitting in the dark, on the edge of a bed, staring at a point on the floor with unseeing eyes. Sam moves to sit next to him, Dean does not protest.

Even though it is dark, a sliver of moonlight the only source of light in the room, Sam allows himself to look at Dean and truly appreciate how much weight he has lost, how the air around him smells almost permanently like a bar at opening time and now he notices the tracks on his face, as though he had cried all the moisture out of his body and all that remains is salt.

They do not speak, they have nothing to say, but at some point, Sam puts his arm around his brother and his brother lets him. Sam doesn't know how long they've been sitting there when Dean finally speaks and his voice is surprisingly clear, Sam expected it to be hoarse.

" _Where is he, Sam_?"

 

 

_The mailbox belonging to [Dean it's asking for my name again-] is full and cannot accept any more messages at this time._

 

Claire has been living at the bunker for another year before Dean seems to notice. Not that he had ever protested her presence, he'd accepted it as something that was as unchangeable as the rest of the bunker - the ever-present scent of disinfectant in the kitchen, the emptiness of Cas' room, the powder burns on the library table.

If he is glad there is someone keeping an eye on his brother during hunts he doesn't show it; he doesn't show much these days. The first indication he gives that he has noted Claire's presence is when he gives her her own plate at dinner instead of scraping extra off his and Sam's. He asks what they've been hunting but doesn't react when they tell him it was a milk run. A simple salt and burn. They could have done it in their sleep. Sam suggests that next time he should go with them, it's been too long since he left the bunker, longer still since he hunted. Dean shrugs and eats the rest of the meal in silence.

At some point, after dinner, he finds himself in Castiel's room. It is the same as ever, with no indication that Cas intended to leave that day, no indication that he intended to come back. Dean looks around it as though he can't remember why he came in here before he steps out and closes the door with a gentle click.

 

 

_We're sorry, you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error please check the number and try your call again._

 

Dean tags along for a couple of hunts. It's not the same and by now Sam and Claire are so attuned to each other he can't provide much beyond an extra pair of eyes. He's been out of the game for so long he has to be reminded what kills what and which sigils banish who. He cleans their guns, but Claire has to put them back together when Dean realises he can't quite remember where that screw goes. He's just out of practice Sam says, assuringly, to nobody because it's only him in the bathroom.

A couple of weeks later Dean goes to make a pie, but he forgot the flour at the store and there isn't enough in the cupboard. It puts him in a bad mood for the rest of the day and Sam considers just going out and getting him some pie if it might ease the tension in the bunker. Sam doesn't go out and he thinks that's a good thing when several hours later he goes to make a sandwich and discovers that Dean had turned the oven on in preparation for a pie, but forgot to turn it off.

 

 

 _We're sorry, you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error please check the number and try your call again_.

 

Claire is giving him that _look_ but Sam is determined not to meet her eye. In this way, she has truly replaced his brother, in that they are avoiding talking about the major issue even though it confronts them daily. During their last hunt, Dean had called several times, asking Sam where he'd gone. The answer had never changed, but Dean had called back to ask again anyway. Claire was met with a blank look when they'd returned and she sighed because it wasn't the first time.

Sam won't talk to her about it though, so in a huff of frustration she throws on her coat and asks Dean if he minds her taking Baby for a drive. It takes him a moment to realise she's talking to him and she asks him again, can she take Baby for a drive?

" _Who_?"

The glass in Sam's hand shatters against the floor and this time he meets Claire's gaze head-on.

 

 

 _We're sorry, you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error please check the number and try your call again_.

 

Dean's hair is greying and there are lines around his face that Sam never expected to see there. Claire is waiting just behind him in the doorway, Dean doesn't pay her any attention. She has stopped taking it personally. Sam is telling him that they need to go, that he's sorry but they had to do this, it's not getting better and it's breaking his heart to see him like this. Claire is crying, more so because Dean doesn't argue. He lets Sam help him rise, he throws on a flannel over a faded AC/DC shirt but with the exception of his phone, doesn't grab anything else.

Sam is waiting for the shouts to start. Claire can see him tensing against the potential blows that are about to come, but Dean just steps past them both and heads for the garage. Sam's face is more pained than if Dean had railed against him, he follows Claire out, defeated and there is nothing she can say to lift his spirits.

The home isn't far from the bunker, it can't be as Sam intends to visit daily. Claire helps Dean settle into his new room, it's a vision of neutrality in Magnolia with a generic seascape to add some colour. They've already gone through the paperwork but there is just one more form to fill in, just some background information.

" _And did something happen to prompt this_?" the nurse is asking as Sam scribbles details he's already told them onto the page.

For a moment he stares at her blankly before sighing, " _yes_." But he doesn't elaborate.

Castiel has been missing for fourteen years and if he'd asked Dean he'd have added three months and twenty-nine days to that rather round number.

 

 

_We're sorry, you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error please check the number and try your call again._

 

Daily proves to be too much for Sam, but guilt more than anything prevents him from leaving it longer than two days and Claire won't have him moping around the place. She visits Dean on her way to and from hunts, Sam is stepping back more and more these days. Sometimes he stares at the ceiling and marvels that he should be in a position to retire. Sometimes he stares at the ceiling and could weep that his brother is where he is. It seems almost unfair that Dean should live this long.

Claire has been doing her homework. Sam never asked her to but she does anyway. Sometimes she gives him a new herb to give to Dean, it's supposed to help, even if Dean hates tea. There are a couple of spells she tries until an orderly finds her sitting at the foot of Dean's bed surrounded by candles holding a bowl filled with such curiosities he throws her from the room and it takes Sam several weeks to convince them to allow her back. They relent but she is searched under the guise of stopping a fire hazard.

There is nothing to be done. There is no supernatural reason for this to be happening. There is no medical reason for it either, but Sam leaves that to the professionals. They know their work.

Dean seems to be content with his routine, he never complains about it and Sam likes to think that if he hated it enough then he'd tell them. Secretly, he wonders if this was all a ploy to get Dean to react and that after a couple of days Dean would flip them off and jump into Baby, cussing them out for even bringing him there. But it's been three years now and Dean hasn't said a word. He left so much unsaid so now he says nothing.

 

 

_This is my voicemail. Make your voice...a mail._

 

" _Winchester. Dean Winchester_ ," the man at reception says, breathless, as though he had run the length of the world to get here. The nurse is frowning because she's been here for several years now and Mr. Winchester hasn't had so much as a phone call from someone that isn't his brother, or that other woman. The one with the candles. She asks him to wait a moment because although it's not exactly policy to prevent visitors, it is unusual to have one turn up like this, but at her hesitation, the man positively yells in frustration and his hands slam down on the desk in front of her, " _where is he?!_ "

She is about to call security, to have him thrown out when the other Mr. Winchester rushes in, candle woman at his heels. He assures her it's alright just before he falls into the man's arms, holding him so tight they almost lose their balance. The woman is apologising for his behaviour but the man pulls himself from the other Mr. Winchester's grip and looks back to the nurse, blue eyes frantic, " _where is Dean_?"

She has barely stuttered the words, " _he's in the garden_ ," before the man has taken off, his dirty trench coat billowing behind him and he wrenches the door open with such force she wonders that it remains attached to its hinges. Curiosity gets the better of her and the nurse follows them out, but the man is frozen now, stopped dead at the steps, looking down to where Dean Winchester sits beside a flower bed, staring at the empty pond.

Slowly, the man staggers forward, as though every step is painful to him and he has to force his way down the steps to Dean's side. Hesitantly, he reaches down and places a hand onto Dean's arm, relaxing into the touch and sighing deeply as though he cannot quite believe that this is real. He is on his knees, kneeling beside Dean, one hand on his arm, the other reaching up to reverently touch his hair, his face, his shoulder, and the candle woman is crying into the other Mr. Winchester's shoulder.

" _Hello Dean_ ," the man says, softly and yet they all hear it.

To the nurse, it feels as though the world itself is holding its breath. As though heaven itself had chosen this moment to look down and gasp at what it saw. Even the wind has stopped and the birds have fallen silent. Dean Winchester turns his head and his hands come up to the man's face as green eyes meet blue, both glistening with unspent tears. The man brings his hands to cover Dean's and they both lean into each other before Dean pulls back, as though to double check that this is reality. His fingers trail the man's cheek and the tears spill over, but even as they do so his lips crack into a smile.

" _Cas. Would it have killed you to call?_ "

  

 


End file.
